I don't see why the tax payer should pay for students to avoid working so they can go on the piss for an extra few years.
While obviously drinking is a part of it, I don't think that's a fair way to characterize the whole university experience.
I was a horrible uni student (figured I'd excelled enough in high school and could coast through
) but I still feel I gained a lot through the experience. It shaped a lot about the way I think and approach problems.
That's the real point of a good liberal arts education. I never had illusions that I would work in a field related to political science (although those Soviet politics classes come in handy now
). You don't come out of a good university with a skill - you come out with a better ability to think and analyze. Doesn't matter if you study Korean art. (Technical fields - obviously a different case)
I worked part-time while I was there too, so no "avoiding work"!
Now, I graduated with $20k in debt so can certainly understand how your students would want to avoid that. Entitlements and subsidies of any kind (pension, healthcare, education, etc) are always difficult to take away and painful to lose.
I'm not necessarily advocating the students' position (or their recent activity), but just saying that the opposition to increased fees is understandable. More importantly, the desire for higher education is not at all a bad thing.
Kudos to you for being so successful via a different route. I too feel I've learned a lot more working and living abroad than I could if I'd followed plans to go to graduate school. But you and I are more of an exception than the rule.
